Cragmama "Not all who wander are lost…" JRR Tolkien

Tag Archives: Sport Climbing

An Equal Opportunity Climbing Weekend

An Equal Opportunity Climbing Weekend

“I have a dream that one day bolt-clippers, boulderers, and tradsters will come together on my birthday and climb and eat pizza,” – The Crag Daddoo Well, maybe those weren’t his EXACT words, but in the spirit of the MLK holiday weekend, it was a reasonable paraphrase…and with that in mind we invited our friends from far and wide to celebrate Steve’s birthday this past weekend.  And we couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather – highs in the 50’s without a cloud in the sky!  DIXON:  We kicked the 3 day weekend off on Saturday by converging at the Dixon School…Read the rest of this entry →

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New River Gorge (in January?!?) and Climbing “Tall”

New River Gorge (in January?!?) and Climbing “Tall”

  The cool thing about living in the Southeast is that rock climbing can be a year round endeavor.  In fact, some south-facing, friction climbing areas are pretty much only good in the winter (Stone Mountain, Rumbling Bald, and the Asheboro Boulderfield come to mind).  If the sun is shining and the wind is calm, you can have a very pleasant day with relatively warm rock even with high temps in the low 40’s.  But despite the abundance of winter climbing opportunities, our family always makes a definitive shift into “cold weather climbing mode.”  We spend more time jumping down onto crash pads than…Read the rest of this entry →

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Hit List for 2012 – The Year in Review

Hit List for 2012 – The Year in Review

Well, another year has come and gone, which means another Hit List has drawn to a close.  This was the second time I’ve put my year-long goals out there in cyber space (for 2011 Hit List click here), and once again, it was a wild ride, with plenty of bumps (and bruises) along the way!  After an unexpected injury started the year off on the “wrong foot” (sorry, couldn’t help myself…), I found a lot of my mental battles this year revolved around fear.  Fear in trusting my ankle again, fear in getting my lead head back, along with an…Read the rest of this entry →

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Twelve 5.12’s in 2012 – and Fashion Makes it a Dozen!

Twelve 5.12’s in 2012 – and Fashion Makes it a Dozen!

Some of you may be familiar with my quest for “Twelve 5.12’s in 2012” this year.  For those of you that aren’t, here’s the skinny…At the tail end of last year I managed to eek my way through my very first 5.12a (TKO at Crowder’s Mountain) for the “send.”  (Non-climber translation: leading a route from the ground-up with no hangs or falls on the rope)  With one under my belt, the next logical step was to establish myself a little more firmly within the 5.12 grade.  I figured averaging one per month would be a reasonable expectation.  Plus, twelve 5.12’s…Read the rest of this entry →

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Some Climbing Pics…plus VOTE FOR CRAGMAMA!

Some Climbing Pics…plus VOTE FOR CRAGMAMA!

I posted last week about the highlights from ROCKtoberfest, the annual climber’s festival that benefits the Red River Gorge Climber’s Coalition.  In that post I mentioned the fact that the whole scene was so busy I hardly had time to even think about taking any photos, never mind actually digging my camera out of my pack.  Ironically, however, part of the reason I was being pulled in a million directions was because of photos – one of my fellow Trango teammates, Dan Brayack, was hard at work shooting images of all of us climbing routes.  The photos will be use…Read the rest of this entry →

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“Not all who wander are lost.” —JRR TOLKIEN